Elton John has cancelled all of his upcoming concerts in Las Vegas after contracting a rare and potentially deadly infection while touring in South America. A representative for John said Monday that the 70-year-old Rocket Man Grammy-winner would no longer be able to honor the April and May dates of his Las Vegas residency, The Million Dollar Piano, due to an extended stay in a hospital recovering from the rare illness.

During a recent, successful tour of South America, Elton contracted a harmful and unusual bacterial infection, the singers representative said in a statement obtained by People magazine. During his return flight home from Santiago, Chile, he became violently ill. Upon returning to the U.K., Eltons doctors admitted him to hospital, where he underwent immediate treatment to remove the infection.

After spending two nights in intensive care followed by an extended stay in hospital, Elton was released from hospital on Saturday, April 22 and is now comfortably resting at home per doctors advice, the statement added. Infections of this nature are rare and potentially deadly. Thankfully, Eltons medical team identified this quickly and treated it successfully.

Bacterial invasion of gastro-intestinal tract, most likely. Also known as Montezuma’s revenge. Travelling in a foreign country, your system is not familiar with local bacteria, and therefore lack the immunity. I got very sick with that problem while traveling in Philippines.

My daughter was in Argentina for a law college exchange program for 2 weeks, and got intestinal problems. And then she visited Chongqing university also on a law college related program and got badly sick with gastro issues. In 56 years, I have visited India twice, and never had any issues on long stays there. I guess I grew up there, so my body was familiar with the local germs. But now I am a geezer, and refuse to visit any country outside of Canada, and Western Europe.

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